Quiet Horizon

Institutional Death Rattle

2013-05-20T11:55:02-07:00

What, exactly, is an organization? Answers such as “groups of people who come together to achieve specific objectives”, or “a cultural means of furthering common values” are of course true, but horribly insufficient: particularly when institutions of all varieties are collapsing everywhere we look. This is why this Jeff Bliss video went viral so quickly:

Why does such a video resonate so widely? In the opinion of George Packer, it’s because institutions in the U.S. are collapsing:
and there is a penetrating truth to this. That truth has historically characterized a period of extraordinary times in the life of a society, times which necessitate rethinking about how we do everything - education, healthcare, housing, parenting, dying, working - EVERYTHING. It means the challenge we face is twofold: 1) Figuring out why the old methods don’t work, and 2) Experimenting with new ways to organize ourselves that DO work.

In a previous 2-part blog, I outlined several responses to this dilemma. In part one, I mentioned that the frontier meta-narrative’s values of individualism, the self-made man, and limitless growth were proving to be an insufficient story to explain contemporary times, despite some of the narrative’s successes in earlier periods of history. In part two, I elaborated on 3 things that contribute to the death of any meta-narrative: 1) Taking it too literally, so that it shapes itself as an ideology; 2) Ignoring alternative stories and, by inference, the fact that every human being and society is multi-storied; and 3) How damage to the 1st core layer of identity - the self - is frequently accompanied by damage to 2nd core layer - the family - which prompts people to put an overbearing emphasis to the 3rd core layer - the surrounding culture - to find meaning in their lives. We have always done this: constructed identity in these three areas, and our success depends on the value we place on each of them.

Here’s what I’d add to those earlier blogs: the value we place on each of these areas is in a state of collapse. The individual sense of self continues to move from authenticity to narcissistic inflation worldwide, making marketing one of the primary growth industries in the world. We know we can still use words, video, music and staged emotional ritual to appeal to the common frustrations people have and their desire for an answer “out there” that will solve all problems.

The identity we get from our families is also in decline. This is not just a matter of people spending less time with their children or not having or employing good parenting skills. Increasingly, it's for far more dramatic reasons: the result of being an environmental or war refugee, for instance. Taking an adult ed class in parenting at the local community college is a luxury only a very small portion of the world's population has. Much more importantly is the horrific decline in governmental institutions aimed at supporting families, which means the only people willing to take up this task are usually located inside of religious ideologies.

The third area of collapse is in the cultural arena itself. As globalization puts us increasingly in contact with each other, both the positive and negative dimensions of this continue to grow. What hasn’t happened yet is for “edge” conversations - and structures - needed to shape the foundations of a new, inclusive, non-authoritarian culture that attends to both the basic needs and aspirations of people has yet to gain enough mainstream traction to shift the energy of the society. Shift it to giving credibility and resources to the many wildly successful experiments(what are some you know of?) that are being conducted out there.

Until this happens, it’s critical to keep our despair at bay by doing the following: 1) Continue to experiment in local communities with ways that cultivate values of compassion, justice, and decency; 2) Seek out other families and move beyond nuclear models into communitarian approaches that support the raising, education, and health of children, their parents, their grandparents and their extended family; 3) Advance our individual psychology and emotional intelligence to a point where a sense of entitlement, shamelessness, aggression and magical thinking about the world is “denormalized” and replaced with individuality that is not just expressive but connected in substantial ways to the surrounding world.

We know what we have to do - we just have to keep doing it.

In Honor of An Old Friend

2013-05-13T22:03:54-07:00

My herbalist friend Cascade tragically passed away earlier this month. I'm posting this video demonstrating her wonderful storytelling skills as she recounts parts of our trek through the Himalayas back in 1978. Enjoy!

Narrative Therapy Workshop

2013-04-20T22:56:48-07:00

Quiet Horizon Blog Talk Interview

2013-04-17T10:11:13-07:00

This 2 hour interview explores in detail why I wrote Quiet Horizon and many of its central concepts. Click on the "online with andrea"link below and enter "Quiet Horizon" in the search bar of the page you are taken to - enjoy!

Listen to internet radio with onlinewithandrea on Blog Talk Radio

The Trauma Merchants

2013-04-03T18:14:26-07:00

“....(trauma is) a breach in the protective barrier against stimulation, leading to overwhelming feelings of helplessness.”

- Sigmund Freud

One powerful impact of the contemporary information explosion is increased exposure for all of us to traumas happening throughout the world. The Newtown shooting. The violent murders of public officials. Soldiers committing suicide either when they’re still serving or when they return home. The horrific consequences facing those impacted by environmental disasters. We are reminded daily of these and other traumatic events primarily by two sources: the media and politicians.

That would be fine if these reminders were intended to encourage us to have empathy for the trauma experienced by the principals in these stories, or to consider ways to change the circumstances that resulted in the trauma in the first place. What politicians and the media often do instead, however, is the opposite: they sensationalize and emotionalize traumatic events. First they offer up a thin veneer of concern, and then use the traumatic impact of an event (and its aftermath) for their own advantage. A sensationalized story allows the media to sell more papers. It allows politicians and the media to manufacture fear: to project horrific consequences for the future as a result of the story. When a population is gripped by fear - as was the case after 9/11 - it’s a short step for politicians to take from that fear to the justification of irrational, invasive policies such as the Patriot Act, or immoral wars such as the Iraq war.

This ease with which this happens may seem befuddling until it’s recognized that manufactured fear leads to another, more serious consequence: it re-triggers individual traumas a person has experienced in his own life. When a politician exaggerates the potential consequences of an enemy's behavior, the audience is often having deeper, more personal fears triggered: maybe having been sexually abused, or bullied, or of nearly drowning in a boating accident, or of experiences in combat. Traumatic events such as these have been experienced by a majority of people, yet very few of those people have done anything about it other than bury it and hope it goes away. Such experiences don’t all automaticallly result in PTSD, but that doesn’t mean trauma hasn’t occurred. Through structuring one’s life carefully to avoid trauma triggers, a person may project the impression of being fine; they may even get compliments for their resilience from those who know them. But often they are only able to maintain this facade because they have minimized the impact of the trauma not just through avoiding triggers but in other ways: denial, drug or alcohol use, dissociation, busyness designed to “outrun” the trauma. But unresolved trauma percolates quietly in the body of the person traumatized, and in his memory. When politicians or the media manufacture fear, this trauma can easily be re-triggered. It’s naive to think politicians don’t know this; of course they do. They also know that if they successfully re-trigger trauma they can incapacitate people. It’s a short step from there to securing more power and influence: people are less apt to fight against a policy when they feel helpless. And because trauma in the general population is as widespread as it is, the media and politicians have worked out how easy it is to reproduce the sequence of trauma: 1) Threat, 2) Emergency Response, 3) Freezing, 4) Re-experiencing of rage and terror. That sequence of trauma leads to another sequence: the one activated by the predatory politics that 1) manufactures fear, 2) finger-points and blames others to create an identified enemy, 3) proposes ill-conceived policies to punish that enemy under the guise of being a “protector”, 3) pushes overreactive policies through legislative bodies, and 4) paves the way for enriching and fortifying their own estates.

There are plenty of examples of how this plays out, but one from the mid-1990s illustrates how blatantly callous and sinister trauma activation can be. That example comes from the former president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic chose to “reactivate the chosen glory” of Prince Lazar, a Serbian hero who been killed 600 years earlier by Muslims at the Battle of Kosovo. He had Lazar’s bones dug up and passed from village to village as a means of evoking hatred and a desire for revenge amongst Serbs towards their Muslim neighbors. He used this to create a war atmosphere, to justify torture and brutality, and to enrich his own circumstances and those who were allied with his cause. This example is illuminating because it points out how easily trauma can be re-triggered, even when the event referred to occurred 6 centuries ago. Responses to reactivation will include irrationality, impulsivity, hyperarousal, helplessness, anxiety and insomnia: all of which can be deftly steered towards a politician’s end of violent retribution towards identified enemies. The media colludes with this emotionality through overwhelming a person’s sensory systems with the incessant reporting of horrific events, and combining this with emotive, opinionated reporting styles.

For people to counteract the trauma continually generated by nature, politics, war, and crime is challenge enough. To have to deal with the additional burden of having trauma merchants continually retrigger individual trauma by the irresponsible use of the public domain is unconscionable.

Requiem for Whistle Blowers

2013-03-22T15:12:59-07:00

Remember the first time you did something you weren’t supposed to do as a kid, knew it was wrong, and were scared about the consequences? If you remember that, you probably also remember that your first thought immediately afterwards was probably something like “How can I make sure nobody finds out about this?”

It’s a fact of life that we all make mistakes. It’s also a fact of life that our fear of facing up to our mistakes frequently leads us to making another, more serious mistake: that of covering up our actions, even though doing so may bring considerable harm to others. If, in spite of our mistakes, we instead make the effort to make things right, we drop into a universal narrative of reparation: one that transcends culture, nation, race, or gender. A narrative that doesn't hide mistakes, but faces them. Staying on the winning side of this narrative is the inspiration behind the vast majority of music, literature, and film we take refuge in to remind ourselves of how high we can soar, how low we can sink, and what we need to consider if we're to sustain our courage during what could be a long journey. Whistle blowers are one way people are forced to face the mistakes they have made whether they want to or not: and, at the same time, are given the opportunity to participate in the narrative of reparation.

That's why most people who heard about Scott Proudy's decision to release his videofile of Mitt Romney's "47%" comments during the recent electoral cycle immediately knew it was important. Their assessment would have been confirmed once they learned about Scott Prouty’s conversation with himself in the middle of the night....the one in which he looked in the mirror and recognized he’d see himself as a coward if he didn’t release and later acknowledge this videofile. Similarly, people old enough to have lived through the VietNam war knew instantly how critical Daniel Ellsberg’s publication of the Pentagon Papers was in unpacking the hypocrisy of the American government in that war. We all recognize the importance of such events because we know that if our society is to remain accountable, how it operates when noboby is looking matters. We also know that the nastier side of our nature usually requires intervention from outside if destructive behavior is to be stopped.

So it's unsurprising that the majority of people recognize the importance of a whistle blowing event - regardless of whether they agree with the whistle blower or not. The problem that emerges then is that despite this recognition, people also know that our societal institutions are more threatened by the act of whistle blowing than they are welcoming towards it. In addition, they suspect - rightly, usually - that government, corporations, religions, and even the media are also asking themselves How can I make sure nobody finds out about this? (whatever their "this" is)

The herculean efforts institutions and individuals make to hide wrong doing reflects three aspects of fear that are important to understand if we are to collectively reverse our pendulum swing towards hyper-individualism back towards a more communitarian perspective. The first understanding is that fear grows stronger in the dark. The second is that hidden fear eventually strangles conscience. The third is that both of these factors sabotage community.

This becomes clearer when considering the fear of a whistle blower next to the fear of a wrong-doer. The fear a whistle blower faces - having his own life and those of loved ones ruined or ended by standing up to an injustice - is a “moment of truth” fear. It is nerve-wracking, sleepless-night-inducing, riven-with-anxiety fear. What will I do with what I now know? How will the larger community I'm a part of respond? It’s a fear perfectly capable of swallowing a person up in one big gulp.

As de-stabilizing as whistle blower fear is, it’s a vision of health compared to the fear of those in power. Why? Because if a person desperately seeks to remain invisible (the CEOs of tobacco companies before being outed by Jeffrey Wigand) or fervently defends himself with psychopathic bluster (Dick Cheney on the virtues of going to war in Iraq), he is either losing or has already lost his battle with fear. He may not think so because outwardly it may look as though he has successfuly pummelled his fear into submission. So much so that he may not even feel much fear anymore: he may have heart attacks instead, or just be numb to all his emotions. But this pyrrhic victory points to that fact that access to his own conscience, and access to a wider community, has been terribly eroded: sometimes to a point of no return. Despite this - as Hannah Arendt brilliantly pointed out in her groundbreaking studies on the "banality of evil" - a person whose conscience and connection to a wider community has been eroded this way still looks “normal” to folks on the outside. He is often quite "successful" in terms of traditional definitions of that word. But behind all of this, he likely lives in dread of the kind of fear a whistle blower experiences. He has no real confidence in his capacity to still be standing at the end of facing such fear, and insufficient courage to find out.

All of which means that society’s collective concern about the ability of our institutions to make decisions that reflect the common good - including decisions that protect and encourage whistle blowing when something is wrong - is well-placed. In fact, we’ve structured many of our institutions in such a way that “getting to the top” is usually easier for isolated people without a functioning conscience (studies of the increasing number of pscyhopaths heading up corporations seem to confirm this).

But changing the course of a meta-narrative always takes time and persistence. We swing from agony to ecstasy as we do so in part because we can feel fear, and because we impel ourselves to find ways to deal with it. At our best we keep pinching ourselves out of the trances we fall into despite our best intentions, picking ourselves up off the floor and turning back to our conscience again and again for guidance.

The way Scott Prouty, Daniel Ellsberg and a whole historical string of whistle blowers would want us to do.

To This Day

2013-03-11T11:01:30-07:00

Many have already seen this powerful video animation/poem, but in case you haven't.....

WHY THE TORTOISE ALWAYS WINS

2013-02-17T15:28:01-08:00

One question that has come up more and more in conversations I’ve been having lately is how society’s power brokers - in both the private and public sector - have been so successful in avoiding consequences for their increasingly bad - and often brazenly bad - behavior. Two particular examples in the U.S. come to mind: 1) A president with a “kill list” and 2) Wall Street barons responsible for a catastrophic financial meltdown walking away unpunished five + years after they brought the rest of us to our knees. How could this happen? is the question that most comes to mind, a query that reflects movement so fast, so contrary to the discourses most people are having with each other and so disconnected from the plight of the vast majority of people that it feels impossible to keep pace with it all. If that’s how you feel, you’re not alone.

It’s not as if the activist responses to bad behavior have disappeared. The organizing, protesting, and communicating people are doing to stop abuses of power are moving ahead and are just as passionate as ever. But there’s still a sense of “untouchable-ness” that seems to shield the powers that be: a shield that looks thorough, well established and, some would say, impenetrable. The laws and regulations various societies have adopted over the years to protect their citizenry from corruption, exploitation, and dangerous behavior seem to be consistently failing in the face of this shield - so is it truly impenetrable?

Despite appearances, the likely answer to this question is NO. Whenever systems change, 3 things happen to mask that change until the moment comes when it all tumbles down: 1) Polarization between the powers that be and those outside that power increases. The increasing wealth divide between the haves and have nots rampaging through society right now is a good example of this. 2) Lots of people become passive, but the ones who remain active and continue to advocate start breaking through occasionally. So while a large number of folks are getting lost in their iPads, it’s also true that the effectiveness and persistence of advocacy for certain causes (equal rights under the law for gays, for example) begin to get traction. 3) Slowly but surely, the dialogues the society needs to have in the broader community outside a specific advocacy group starts happening. Right now in the U.S., the dialogue about how we need to reconcile our constitution with the huge number of gun deaths is a primary example of a conversation slowly becoming more relevant. That relevance will need to move well beyond our laws - which will have varying degrees of effectiveness - to our culture. Can a culture with a strong fear-based, paranoid strain shift to one that cultivates trust and connection to each other? Can the hyper-emphasis on individualism so valued by gun rights advocates move to a point where community interests in safety and the well-being of children receive equal weight? Meta-narratives take a long time to shift.

The only hope we have in discovering answers to these questions lies in the quality of the dialogue we are able to have about them, something we all intuitively know. Cultural dialogue that examines what we collectively value at this point in time, and how we are going to value it.

If the dialogue on guns, or climate, or corruption, or the economy, can move to that level - if we can actually have important conversations on these matters - that seemingly impenetrable shield that protects the power brokers will, all of a sudden, fall over.

And then all those tortoises who put their necks out and their feet in motion will cross the line....perhaps sooner than we think.

Meditation's Quiet Transformative Power

2013-02-08T09:25:33-08:00

Meditation has been scientifically studied for a while now and almost without fail, continues to demonstrate both physical and mental health benefits. As this article shows, those benefits are not to be underestimated.

Feel Like Changing Your Mind?

2013-01-08T12:21:31-08:00

One of the most powerful indications that a person has not compromised his mental flexibility is his capacity to change his mind about something. Of course, changing your mind can also mean confusion or timidity or a number of other things, but that's not what I'm talking about here: I'm referring to changing your mind because you've used it. Changing your mind because you are critically thinking, and have opened up other possibilities. This is a foundational skill if we're ever to move beyond ideological thinking.

I came across this article today about a staunch environmentalist who was radically against genetically modified foods and now supports them. Because this topic is so volatile, I plan to keep monitoring it because it's one of those subjects where moving to the opposite side of the spectrum if you're a public figure means you're going to catch considerable flack. That doesn't mean you've necessarily moved from "wrong" to "right", but it does mean you've done some thinking (I'm discounting the cynical option of someone being "bought off", of course - which happens, but isn't something I assume as a first option). I'm not knowledgeable enough about the wisdom of moving towards genetically modified foods (I question whether anyone is, given the number of variables), and I live in an "organic nation" environment where opposing GMOs is much more common than considering them as viable....which gave me all the more reason to take a look when someone in the middle of that debate publicly went the other direction.